Rather than a vehicle to prepare the public for what is to be revealed and the consequences of such, the Q movement is a practical and expedient political device. As such, the purpose and goals of Q are (1) to rally a free social media army, (2) to satiate and pacify Trump's base, and (3) to hold a Damocles Sword over opponents as bargaining leverage.
The simple and brilliant idea of mustering an army of volunteers, privileged to be the first recipients of new revelations dispensed by an insider, runs in the face of the top-down, heavy-handed Cass Sunstein approach to mold opinion used by previous administrations. There is no need for legions of paid shills and bot farms when anons will do it for free. The faithful are inspired to create a clearing house, Q research, for memes and arguments, many of which are propagated virally through mainstream social media. Rallying its social media army, the savings for the administration in time and money are not insignificant. In fact, the costs are borne by the loyal anons who commit their time and energy, often to the detriment of their personal lives.
Without Q, those who propelled Trump to the White House would see no level of swamp drainage, but instead would focus on the swamp detritus associated with the administration. With Q, anons are heartened and confident that “It’s Habbening!”, that “the plan” is in effect. Cryptic clues of pending action against the sordid ways of the swamp creatures reinforce the faith of the anons despite any tangible results. In tantalizing the anons with promises and feints of action, trump has corralled his hard core supporters into an obscure pen. The result is a parallel existence of a reality-based view in which the swamp continues as before, and an unsubstantiated fantasy view that mass arrests are pending and transporters are standing by to shuttle the villains to Gitmo. Merely by offering the latter line through Q, Trump has effectively insulated himself from criticism from much of his base for his lack of action regarding the swamp. In this sense, Q acts as a relief valve.
There is no doubting that governments, aided by globalist sponsors, are dens of thieves, perverts and other assorted sociopaths. In these toxic environments, blackmail is the prevailing mode of coercion. It is through Q that Trump, while maintaining plausible deniability, hints to his opponents that “we know.” Q has directed scores of posts naming, for example, Chuck Schumer or Adam Schiff. Despite the not-so-subtle threats to those vile politicos, they retain their offices. Legislators who offer no leverage for Trump to exploit are useless. Trump has no intention to “drain the swamp,” but rather permit its inhabitants to prosper as always, confident in his leverage over them.
For all Q’s posts which cite that optics must be right for “the plan” to succeed, optics seem to be irrelevant elsewhere. A President who campaigned of America First does not seem to consider optics important when he does more for a foreign nation than for his own. Apparently optics do not matter when the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, dispenses to that state a record “aid” sum, and demands that the U.S. must recognize the Golan Heights as belonging to the pariah state. The entire optics canard is simply a means of justifying Trump’s lack of action in draining the swamp and compelling his private social media army to battle.